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Ambiguous Moth cocoon

Lascoria ambigualis

Photo by Allen Hoof
Published on Project Noah
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45.816, -64.5781

Field Notes

Description:

Leaf of unidentified plant covered with orange scale or rust and held in unnatural conical shape by barely visible spider-web like whitish filaments.

Habitat:

Temperate coastal ecosystem of tidal estuaries and rocky cliffs with agricultural fields, pastures, shrublands and mixed deciduous and coniferous forests.

Notes:

Spotted along a path south of the visitor center at Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park, New Brunswick. I wonder if the leaf has been formed into a cocoon by an insect or spider. I wonder if the orange material is living material. The chosen classification (arthropods) is arbitrary. I don't know what I spotted.

Species ID Suggestions

Ambiguous Moth

Lascoria ambigualis

Reference Link
John B.
1

Comments (5)
John B.
Thank you, Sukanya. I had a good teacher.
John B.
You're welcome, Allen. Glad to be of help.
SukanyaDatta
"Curiouser and curiouser" as Alice said. I can only repeat it. What an interesting find! Allen Hoof. Fantastic detective work, John!
Allen Hoof
John: I agree. This spotting is more than a moth cocoon. Apparently, the orange pieces are rust. The info at the bug guide link helped immensely, and the fact that one image at the link is nearly identical to my spotting suggests that the pairing of a moth cocoon and rust infestation is not a one-off, and may exemplify some sort of common--but unknown to the uneducated (such as I am)--symbiotic relationship. If so, the fact that my spotting was in Atlantic Canada and the one at the bug guide link was in Iowa suggests that it is a widely distributed relationship. Thanks for the help.
John B.
I hope that the link to bugguide.net helps. It seems that what your spotting shows, is quite complicated and involves more than just the cocoon of a moth.
Photographed
PublishedJuly 14, 2024

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